Graffiti, as archaeological artefacts, can make an invaluable contribution to the study of the ancient world. This is certainly true in respect of Hatra, an archaeological site of Late Antiquity in Western Jazirah (Iraq), where they were widely distributed in a variety of residential, religious, and military contexts. The scholarly tendency, however, has been to consider them comparatively insignificant, particularly in relation to the more monumental evidence, and they have therefore often been neglected in scholarship. For instance, even though some of the texts discussed in this volume were discovered in the very first excavations, which were led by the then Directorate General of Antiquities of Iraq in the 1950s, they were not published until decades later.
The idea for this book was born out of many encounters with Prof. Roberta Venco Ricciardi (Università di Torino and Centro Ricerche Archeologiche e Scavi di Torino per il Medio Oriente e l’Asia), Director of the Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hatra, and Prof. Fabrizio Angelo Pennacchietti (Università di Torino and Accademia delle Scienze di Torino). We realised the need to present all the available evidence on Hatran graffiti coherently and in one place, in order to foster further scholarship. Previous, more limited, articles (e.g. Moriggi 2010b, Moriggi 2013a, and Moriggi and Bucci 2016) have already demonstrated the importance of this material for enriching our knowledge of Hatran language and culture. With this in mind, the current project aimed to contextualise the graffiti within both the epigraphy of Hatran Aramaic, and the broader linguistic framework of the varieties of Aramaic used in Eastern Mesopotamia and Western Jazirah as a whole.
This book presents a complete edition of all the published and unpublished textual graffiti recorded in the Archive of the Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hatra, now housed in Turin. The Archive is extremely significant, as it includes first-hand documents (photographs, drawings, plans, and handwritten notes) that were produced in the field, mostly between the 1950s and the 1990s, by Iraqi and Italian archaeologists. Even though it does not include all the graffiti from the site, this systematic study sheds light on the major issues related to not only Hatran Aramaic, but also ancient graffiti in general.
One major problem in producing this study was establishing a clear and accurate referencing system into which the new texts could be incorporated, a problem exacerbated by the existence of various different systems already. In the present book, the new entries are classified according to the system started by Beyer 1998. To accomplish this, it was essential to study the archaeological data in order to identify the original findspot of each item and, where relevant, its place of publication. This combination of epigraphy and archaeology is therefore central to our approach, with the complementary data of these two disciplines together serving to properly contextualise the items and thus facilitate future studies. Epigraphers and archaeologists of the Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hatra always worked side by side, but the fruits of their efforts were often published separately. This tended to result in the loss of data of such a kind as is essential in the study of the Hatran inscriptions. It is our hope that, in the present study, we have restored such data in a way that will prove to be of use to future scholarship.
We are particularly grateful to Prof. Roberta Venco Ricciardi, who kindly granted us full access to the Archive of the Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hatra, and offered us constant support and numerous comments on our work. Furthermore, we would like to express our deep gratitude to Prof. Fabrizio A. Pennacchietti, who gave invaluable advice on the readings and many other issues. We are also grateful to both Prof. Venco Ricciardi and Prof. Pennacchietti for the two appendices in this volume.
For advice and comments on previous drafts of this book, we thank Dr Francesca Dorna Metzger (Missione Archeologica Italiana a Hatra). For readings and analyses of some of the Hatran Aramaic texts included here, thanks are due to Prof. Bahaa Amer al-Jubouri (Baghdad University), Prof. Dr Klaus Beyer † (Universität Heidelberg), and Dr Giuseppe Petrantoni (Università di Catania). Dr Enrico Foietta provided important data regarding the location of some of the published texts and the archaeological documentation. We are also glad to express our gratitude to Prof. Adil al-Jadir (University of Tunis el-Manar), Dr Alessia Bellusci (National Library of Israel, Jerusalem), Dr Rodolfo Brancato (Università di Catania), Dr James Nathan Ford (Bar-Ilan University), and Prof. Dr Manfred Krebernik (Friedrich-Schiller-Universität Jena). Dr Gerhard Wilhelm Nebe (Universität Heidelberg) was generous in providing information about Beyer’s legacy.
Dr Enrico Marcato (Università di Venezia “Ca’ Foscari”) generously provided us with a pre-print copy of his now newly published volume on Hatran Aramaic onomastics, and was, furthermore, always ready to share his readings, data, and ideas. He therefore deserves a special mention for his willingness and kindness. For their friendship and help, we would like to thank Prof. Dr Siam Bhayro and Ms Anne Burberry (University of Exeter), Prof. Dr Alessandro Mengozzi (Università di Torino), Prof. Dr Paolo Villani (Università di Catania), and Prof. Dr Vito Messina (Università di Torino).
The staff at Brill, and in particular Katelyn Chin, have been thoughtful and supportive in the process of bringing this book to press.
In addition to the people mentioned above, Marco Moriggi wishes to acknowledge both Prof. Giancarlo Magnano San Lio (Vice Chancellor—Università di Catania) and Prof. Maria Caterina Paino (Director of the Dipartimento di Scienze Umanistiche—Università di Catania), who allowed him to take sabbatical leave in the academic year 2016–2017 in order to complete the research for this book, and Prof. Dr Morwenna Ludlow (Theology and Religion—University of Exeter) for his appointment as Honorary Senior Research Fellow in the College of Humanities.
Finally, Ilaria Bucci wants to thank Luca deeply for his inspiring strength, even in the darkest moments, and unfailing love. Marco Moriggi wishes to thank his wife Maria Teresa and his daughter Lea for all the love and joy they bring in his life every day.
Marco Moriggi and Ilaria Bucci
Catania and Torino, 27th September 2018